So, I’m finishing out the first two weeks of Elvira with a review of Elvira’s second movie, Elvira’s Haunted Hills from 2001.

Like Mistress of the Dark, I had never watched this one, so with the surprise of actually liking that first movie, I sat down to watch this one hoping to also like it.

And I didn’t. It’s more of the same but not done as well. Elvira is Elvira. Double entendres abound. It feels like it wants to be something like Young Frankenstein, or, to be more accurate, Haunted Honeymoon. But the charisma of the cast (or lack thereof) can’t overcome the poor script and attempts at humor. I know this was made on a shoestring budget, and it’s lampooning old Vincent Price Poe movies like The Pit and the Pendulum (the poster for which even had the giant swinging blade on it) and The Raven, which I honestly haven’t seen. But it still didn’t land, meaning mainly the humor.

The sets for this movie were pretty great though. The giant castle, as a set, worked very well and had lots of cool elements incorporated into the design including a small hidden door in the side of the giant fireplace (sidenote: I love giant stone fireplaces in castles). And the overall story was actually not that bad, but this movie lives or dies on the humor and the humor just doesn’t work as well in this one as it did in the previous movie. It was so MEH that I didn’t really have anything I wanted to talk about more in depth by pulling out screen grabs. It’s just not as fun a movie as I wanted it to be.

So this week has been all about Elvira. You’ve seen articles and centerfolds. Elvira has permeated pop culture especially during the Halloween season. She has popped up in many random movies as a fun cameo. But there have been two Elvira specific movies released and I have watched neither of them. So I thought now would be a good time to do that.

Today, for my very first time, I’m taking a look at the first Elvira movie; Elvira Mistress of the Dark from 1988.

I can’t believe I’ve never watched this movie. It’s fun, it’s campy. It’s the perfect Elvira movie. Mostly comedy, with some spooky genre elements added in. I had a lot of fun with it.

Let’s take a look at a few highlights from the movie.

Title cards.

The show opens up with Elvira on the set of her late night TV show. It’s a low budget local station so naturally she wants to get out of there and go to Vegas to become a showgirl.

This is an anchorwoman at Elvira’s TV station waiting to go on after Elvira finishes her show. She’s not very nice. She’s played by Tress MacNeille. Tress is sort of a legend in voice over animation work. She does voice work for Simpsons, Futurama, Animaniacs, and SO MANY other shows. Check out her IMDB. It’s insane. But, funnily enough, Tress would voice the character Booberella on The Simpsons which was a parody of Elvira.

A lot of this movie is what actors pop up from other genre pictures.

Here are a few of the teens Elvira befriends in the movie. On the far left, is Ira Heiden, who played Will in Nightmare on Elm Street 3. To the right of Ira is Kris Kamm who’s been in a ton of TV like Quantum Leap, 21 Jump Street, and Coach.

Hey, it’s Kenicky! From Grease!

Here’s the villain, Vincent. He plays this up pretty well. He’s appropriately evil and English. This guy has also been in a bunch of genre stuff like Star Trek VI: Undiscovered Country, the old Fox TV show Werewolf, the Max Headroom TV series, Needful Things and Michael Bay’s Transformers.

Edie McClurg! I love 80s movies for vintage product placement. We get a scene at a town picnic and in it we see a bunch of old soda cans like this Apple Slice as well as a few vintage Diet Pepsi cans.

Elvira finally gets to Vegas at the end and we get to see a whole overblown Vegas number. It’s campy but fun.

This was a fun movie to watch. Yes, it was campy, but that’s Elvira’s whole shtick. The movie was entertaining and I enjoyed it. Glad I finally watched it.

So next week. I had so much fun doing Elvira this week, that I think I’ll do it again. So, expect to see another week of Elvira goodness. I’ll look at more movie and TV appearances as well as a few other surprises. Come back next week to see what I have in store.

It’s hard to believe it’s been ten years since the Marvel Cinematic Universe began. And here we are, along with Robert from To the Escape Hatch and CT on Nerd Lunch doing a third “Countdown to Avengers” series. AND, we are joined by a new blogger, Jay from Life vs. Film. You can check out the start of this series with Robert’s post about Avengers: Age of Ultron. Robert, Jay, CT and I are all splitting the films up in anticipation of May’s Avengers: Infinity War. With this film and next year’s Avengers 4, the expectation is that we will be done on some level with this iteration of the MCU. But I doubt it’ll go away completely. If you want to check out my last review in this series, it was for Captain America: Civil War. Now, let’s turn to my next review, Thor Ragnarok.

Like last time, let’s start off with my quick takes on the first two Thor movies. First off, I read comics in the 80s and 90s. I never really liked Thor as a character. He just never honestly seemed to click with me. That being said, I really like that first movie. There’s not really a lot going on, but Hemsworth is great as Thor. Hiddlesworth is good as Loki (he doesn’t become *great* until Avengers). Portman is good as Jane and Kat Dennings is almost a show stealer as Darcy. It’s fun to see Hemsworth playing “fish out of water” on Earth but we get precious little of Asgard. The movie is mostly enjoyable and a good intro to MCU Thor. If nothing else, the movie got me reading the Thor comics right about the time Jason Aaron started writing them and *that* has made me a huge fan of Thor. Check out my full review of Thor for the very first Countdown to Avengers back in 2012.

Thor: The Dark World has its flaws. It tries to do too much and in the process squanders one of Thor’s best villains, Malekith the Accursed. Hemsworth is still great as Thor. We see Hiddleston in his post-Avengers awesomeness. Portman is a problem and obviously doesn’t really even want to be there. Kat Dennings brings more Darcy and she’s a delight. There’s a lot more humor in this movie than I remember whenever I see it, but ultimately the movie is cluttered, hard to follow and doesn’t really seem to go anywhere. So while I was okay with the Thor movies they had put out so far, I was ready for them to try something new. This Thor has lots of potential as he’s great in the team up movies, but his solo efforts have been only okay.

When announcements started coming out about Thor Raganarok it was clear they were going in a different direction. A New Zealand director, Cate Blanchett as the villain, a bright color palate and a humorous tone that seemed to have been clearly inspired by the success of the Guardians of the Galaxy movies. I was okay with all of this. Chris Hemsworth has proven he can be funny. He has the timing. And Thor can be funny. The aforementioned Jason Aaron’s run on Thor is infused with lots of humor and takes Thor in a more cosmic direction which it looks like this movie wants to do. So I was all on board with what they were trying to do. And that first trailer just ROCKED.

The movie 100% delivers. They *nailed* the tone perfectly for me. I know many people said there was too much humor, but I don’t agree. The humor was great and *everyone* got to have their moments. Not just Thor. Hulk was funny, Valkyrie, Loki, hell, a brand new character, Korg, practically stole the movie. I loved every bit of this lightened up Thor.

Loki returns and is awesome once again. We even get some really nice scenes between on screen brothers, Thor and Loki. Hemsworth and Hiddleston really work well together. I’ll be sad if/when this particular pairing ends.

What about the big bad, Hela? She is as awesome as I wanted her to be. Cate is the best anyway, so to see her really chew up the scenery here I loved it. Actually, I could have done with *more* Hela. Like, this movie maybe could have been split into two movies, with the Grandmaster/Hulk parts in one movie and the Hela parts in another. But that’s a minor quibble. We get so much awesomeness throughout this movie….The Grandmaster! What can I say about how awesomely weird Jeff Goldblum is as Grandmaster? So good. And I like *this* Hulk. He can talk and have a bit of a conversation. And he’s funny. I can’t say enough how on point I think the tone of this movie was. I think I liked it better than the Guardians movies.

Wrapping up the movie, we see the Asgardians leaving to start New Asgard. Thor is king and ready to lead his people, sans hammer. I’m hoping we get to see Thor wield his battle axe, Jarnbjorn, in Infinity War. Even if only for a little bit. Loki has made off with the cosmic cube again and it looks like Thor may be the first hero to actually have an interaction with Thanos, or Thanos’ people. I can’t wait to see this Thor meet up with the Guardians. So much fun potential coming up in Infinity War. I can’t wait.

But I’m not the only one who had thoughts on this movie. Here are some quick thoughts from CT:

This movie was for Thor and Hulk what Civil War was for the rest of the MCU characters (sans GotG). It further alters the status quo and makes big shocking changes for Thor that will have to affect him in some way moving forward.

If this movie did anything wrong, it was how it wiped out the Warriors Three so effortlessly. It would have been nice to see them get a few more moments to shine. Hopefully Lady Sif’s absence means she’s still out there able to play a role in a future MCU installment someday.

Hulk finally advances to a level I’ve always wanted to see on screen–that of the talking brute who doesn’t want to become Banner. The TV show and previous movies have made a point of playing up that Banner doesn’t want to be the Hulk, but until now, we’ve really not seen that Hulk doesn’t want to be Banner.

Loki promises to be a big player in Infinity War having clearly saved the Cosmic Cube. This movie ends with a clear set up for an early encounter between Thanos and New Asgard. Hopefully these refugees don’t have worse luck after this meeting with the Mad Titan.

It’s hard to believe it’s been ten years since the Marvel Cinematic Universe began. And here we are, along with Robert from To the Escape Hatch and CT on Nerd Lunch doing a third “Countdown to Avengers” series. AND, we are joined by a new blogger, Jay from Life vs. Film. You can check out the start of this series with Robert’s post about Avengers: Age of Ultron. Robert, Jay, CT and I are all splitting the films up in anticipation of May’s Avengers: Infinity War. With this film and next year’s Avengers 4, the expectation is that we will be done on some level with this iteration of the MCU. But I doubt it’ll go away completely.

For now, let’s talk about what I came here to talk about…Captain America: Civil War.

Quickly, before we start, my hot take on the first two Captain America movies. The first one is a good, but not outstanding origin movie with lots of great performances including Evans, Atwell, and Weaving. I liked the movie more than I expected and I liked Chris Evans as Cap a *lot* more than I expected. Winter Soldier was a game changer not only for the MCU but for this version of Cap as well. We see Cap in a modern movie kicking all kinds of ass and being awesome. We also get the introduction of two more awesome characters in the Winter Soldier and Sam Wilson, aka Falcon. And while the movie is a great action movie, the political intrigue subplot is well played out as well. The Winter Soldier movie was an eye opener and made Chris Evans’ Cap my new favorite MCU hero over Iron Man.

Fast forward to Civil War. Some may even call it Avengers 2.5. The Avengers taking sides over the fate of Winter Soldier. The first appearance of several new characters. I was pretty excited to see it going into it. And it more than delivers. As these movies have gone on, especially the Avengers movies, I think one of my favorite parts are the cold openings. Usually we see the group in the middle of some mission, working together, bantering, being “The Avengers”. The teamwork and dialogue in these scenes are so fun and I love it. Civil War doesn’t disappoint. It opens with the current Avengers, plus Wanda and minus Tony, in Lagos trying to stop Brock Rumlow from stealing a biological weapon. We get to see everyone in action, Falcon has Red Wing who gets to shine in battle. Lots of really fun stuff here. Then the drama starts with the thrust of the plot and the entrance (and return!) of General Thunderbolt Ross (shout out to The Incredible Hulk movie!).

The crux of the plot makes sense. Honestly, even the split of the heroes makes sense to me, each hero going where their natural proclivities lie. I love the return of Clint. I know his character gets a lot of crap from fans, but you know what, I like Renner and I like his portrayal of Hawkeye. How we haven’t gotten a Black Widow/Hawkeye team up movie is beyond me. We also get the appearance of Scott Lang from Ant-Man (which CT reviewed a little while ago) and he’s great in several *almost* show stealing scenes (Giant Man!). They continue to build out Winter Soldier’s character. He gets better and more interesting every single movie he’s in. And if I don’t get a Winter Soldier/Falcon buddy movie at some point, we will have words, Marvel.

There’s so much to unpack I’m not sure where I want to go next. How about the debut of Black Panther? I’ve read comics since the mid-80s, I’ve never really read Black Panther but this particular iteration of him made me a fan and the Black Panther solo movie further cemented that. The debut of the new Spider-Man? Amazing (pun intended). Tom Holland *nails* Peter Parker. And he *nails* Spider-Man in the suit. Again, the Spider-Man solo movie cemented *that* even further. There’s not much I don’t really like about this movie. The action set pieces are drop dead gorgeous. When Cap goes to confront Bucky while special forces are busting down the door to his apartment…fantastic. Perfectly staged. And the Berlin airport sequence? I don’t need to expend any more words describing how awesome that whole sequence is.

So I said there isn’t really anything I don’t like about this movie. Let me amend that a bit. I feel like, and this has been a progression since Iron Man 2, Tony Stark is more and more becoming a crazy asshole. I mean, I know he was always an asshole but his heart was in the right place and he was still lovable. Continuing that progression here, he seems to go off the deep end a bit with these Sekovia Accords. He acts like if the team had been under oversight from the beginning, then the people who died in New York, Sekovia and Lagos would have been saved. Like, if the UN had oversight over the Avengers, then that kid building sustainable housing in Sekovia (Alfre Woodard’s son) during the Ultron incident wouldn’t have died. I posit that if the UN had been involved that not only would he most likely still have died, probably millions more would have died as well. But I also get this progression as ever since New York, Tony has been on edge with PTSD, then he created Ultron, causing all that death and destruction. I totally get why he’s overcorrecting here. But it just makes me love it more when he goes to Russia to bury the hatchet with Cap, and then it completely breaks my heart when he sees the video of his parents getting killed and it starts all over. Such a powerful ending to this movie that I really hope when we get to the next Avengers movie that these issues are addressed in some form. I don’t want these things to be brushed aside easily. They really need to address the ending of this movie HARD (they don’t at all in Spider-Man: Homecoming or Black Panther).

So, as it stands, this is very nearly my favorite MCU movie to date. And that’s a loaded statement because this movie lives on the backs of almost the entire 10 years of history of the MCU to date. But that’s what makes it so special.

But I wasn’t the only one with thoughts on this movie, here are some final thoughts by CT:

That 14 minute airport fight was something I had waited my entire life to see. Super heroes are notorious for fighting amongst themselves in the comics. And we got a few seconds of an Iron vs. Thor battle in the first Avengers, but here we have two teams, each at “Avengers-level,” facing off. Not only that, to see Giant-Man make his debut here was a nice added touch.

While I’m “Team Cap,” if it were real life, I think I’d be Team Stark. The beauty of this movie is the debate between the two is one worth having. The downfall is that the discourse breaks down quickly and devolves into fighting. Hey! Just like the internet!

It was also great to see William Hurt’s Ross again which again confirms the Ed Norton movie is a part of this. A fact that some Marvel fans need to be reminded of. Yes, it would have been great to have Ruffalo retroactively in that film, but recasting is a part of life (see also War Machine).

This is an MCU-changing film drastically affecting the status quo and leaving things in an interesting place for Infinity War. The family has been shattered. Now they have to work past everything again to take on Thanos.

Yesterday for my “greatest hits of AWESOME-tober-fest” week, I looked at the novelization for the movie Jason X, of which I am a fan. I thought maybe for Fangoria Movie Friday I should revisit the movie itself and see if I do still, in fact, enjoy it. A 15 years later retrospective on a very maligned movie.

In the late 90s, when Freddy vs Jason was still in “development hell”, Friday the 13th creator Sean Cunningham wanted to make another Jason movie to continue fostering interest in the character. Writer Todd Farmer pitched “Jason in space” and develpment began on what would become the 10th Friday the 13th movie, Jason X.

The movie starts off in 2010. Jason has been captured by the government and kept in the Crystal Lake Research Facility. They have been testing his ability to regenerate tissue and stay alive. After several failed attempts to kill him it is decided to put him in cryo stasis, but certain other shadowy government departments want him for further study so they prep him for transfer to another facility. However, Jason escapes and kills nearly everyone. One of the researchers, Rowan, traps him in the cryo chamber, but Jason pierces the chamber with his machete and both Jason and Rowan are trapped in cryo sleep as the facility goes into lockdown mode.

Over 445 years later, a scientific team stumbles upon the two and transports them to their ship. The crew revive Rowan from cryo sleep with nanotechnology and just as she is about to warn them about Jason he revives and starts killing all of the scientists. Rowan and the few survivors must figure out a way to stop Jason and get off the ship before it is destroyed.

That’s the elevator pitch, there’s a little bit more to it. But not much. Getting this out of the way, the movie is ultra low budget. Especially for being in space. The actors are mostly unknowns but the lead girl, Rowan, was on Andromeda, as was one other cast member. The cast is as good as any other standard Friday the 13th. The kills are pretty good. One of the more infamous being the “liquid nitrogen head smash”.

For the characters, Rowan is pretty good as the female lead. The other “lead” if you want to call her that is an android a la Data from Star Trek: TNG named KM-14. You also get the typical smattering of other character types; “the tough military sergeant”, “the computer dork” and “the outspoken one with loose morals”. They work as well as any of the other F13 movies. Certainly no worse than Jason Takes Manhattan or New Beginning. But saying “they work as well” and “they are good and interesting characters” are two different things. They do what they need to do but they aren’t great.

As far as the story goes, I like the idea of the government wanting to test the captured Jason’s supernatural healing abilities. He has this ability to regenerate after nearly 100% damage. Of course the government is going to want to study him. I also like the idea of trapping people on a spaceship with a hunting Jason. You can tell the premise of this movie was “borrowed” from Alien. As a plot device, for me, it works. What also works for me is the idea of Uber Jason. Towards the end of the movie, the android character gets “an upload”, becomes Rambo and “kills” Jason by shooting off his leg, part of his rib cage and part of his head. And despite the fact that Jason hasn’t died from some seemingly fatal wound at least 5 times before this, everyone assumes he’s dead. Then the damaged medical station thinks Jason needs to be fixed so it takes over and rebuilds Jason. As a cyborg.

And so is born the best thing in this movie, Uber Jason. We get precious little time with Uber Jason. He’s awesome and should have been onscreen more than 20 minutes. He’s relentless and kills gloriously. The movie really picks up and seems more fun once Uber Jason is on the scene. Here’s a nice gallery of Uber Jason pics.

At one point they trap Uber Jason in a simulated 1980 Camp Crystal Lake environment. He gets to kill two simulated co-eds by smacking their sleeping bags against a tree. It’s a pretty great homage to past movies (the sleeping bag stunt was done back in Part VII).

So, is this a great movie? No, not really. But it’s fun. It has fun with the concept of Jason and the idea to move him into outer space and turn him into a futuristic cyborg Jason was a clever idea. Did everything 100% work? No, of course not. The budget is uber cheap and you get what you pay for with the actors. But I had fun with what the filmmakers were trying to do and I still say I enjoy this movie.

The thirteenth book in Baum’s Oz series was called The Magic of Oz. It was published in 1919, one month after L Frank Baum had died due to complications after having a stroke.

This story begins with a magician who discovers a simple magical word for transforming anything and anyone into anything and anyone he wishes. The word is complex and must be pronounced exactly, but once learned is very easy to execute. After Ozma declares that only Glinda and the Wizard are able to perform magic in Oz, the magician retires but writes down his discovery in a secret compartment in his magical laboratory. Years later the magician’s son happens upon the secret word, figures out how to use it and escapes his village to do wicked things across the land of Oz. The son, Kiki Aru, joins up with the original Nome King, Ruggedo, who was exiled in Book 3 – Tik-Tok of Oz, to exact revenge on the denizens of The Emerald City, most notably Ozma and Dorothy. The plan involves tricking the animals of Oz to revolt against the Emerald City by convincing them that the people of Oz are going to attack and enslave the animals first.

Meanwhile, everyone in Oz is preparing for Ozma’s birthday and Dorothy and like 8 other people travel out into the Oz country side to find Ozma the perfect birthday present. Yeah, I’m not too thrilled with that part of the story. Trot and Capt Bill spend most of their time trying to obtain this magical flower that is floating in this island in the middle of a river in the northernmost part of Oz. Just not very compelling.

However, the scenes with Ruggedo and Kiki Aru convincing the animals to attack the Emerald City are pretty good. However, while out looking for presents, the Wizard and Dorothy stumble upon the plan and do their best to stop it. All while Capt Bill and Trot are magically stuck on the island with the magical flower.

Oh, and, spoiler alert, Dorothy and the Wizard train a monkey to jump out of Ozma’s cake and dance. That is their gift to her. On her birthday.

This is an oddly disjointed book. I liked about half of it. The rest is sort of silly, but in a bad way. Normally Baum is able to make the silly parts endearing, but this time, not so much. I’m not really going to recommend this book, even though we see the return of the original Nome King, one of my favorite Oz characters. It just seems a little pointless and dull. Don’t get me wrong, there’s a lot of imagination and cool stuff to see, but by the end of the book I was a little disappointed.

Only one more L Frank Baum Oz book would be published after this.

Below is my checklist of Oz books. I’ve crossed off the ones I’ve currently read. Next up is the fourteenth and final L Frank Baum Oz book, Glinda of Oz.

The twelfth book in Baum’s Oz series was The Tin Woodman of Oz and it was published in 1918.

This was a surprisingly good book that actually has a very relevant title as opposed to a few other books in this series (I’m looking at you, Tik-Tok of Oz). And the book’s plot fills in a lot of back story to the original Wonderful Wizard of Oz.

Ol’ Nick Chopper and The Wizard (he actually has no name and is only ever called The Wizard or Little Wizard) are telling tales in Chopper’s palace in the Winkie country. A wandering Gillikin boy named Woot arrives at the palace and begins asking how Tin Man became tin. Nick tells his origin in more detail about the witch Mombi cursing his axe and having his limbs cut off one by one. After each limb is cut off, he goes to a tinsmith friend of his named Ku-Klip to replace the limb until he was entirely made out of tin. After his accidents, Nick felt it wasn’t fair to marry his sweetheart, Nimmie Amee, since he didn’t truly love her any more due to not having a heart. So he leaves. This reminiscing causes Chopper to wonder what Amee is doing and to realize that he really should have married her like he promised.

So Nick Chopper, the Scarecrow, the Wizard and Woot travel to Munchkinland to see if Amee will still marry the tin woodman. They meet lots of adventures on the way and even come upon another tin man in the munchkin forest. This new tin man was a soldier named Capt Fyter who also fell in love with Nimmie Amee and had his sword cursed by Mombi in the exact same way as Nick Chopper. Which of course led him to Ku-Klip. He was caught in the forest many years ago and rusted in a rain storm. Obviously shocked by the similar circumstances of their creation this leads the group to seek out Ku-Klip the tinsmith to discover the whereabouts of Nimmie Amee. They also discover that Ku-Klip used the cut off human body parts of Nick Chopper and the Tin Soldier to create another person, Chopfyt (combination of the two names Chopper and Fyter).

From there they travel across Oz to where Nimmie currently resides to see if she wants to marry one of the tin men.

Aside from the copious amounts of back story we get on Nick Chopper, we also get a lot of back story about the Land of Oz itself. We learn that Oz wasn’t always a magical fairyland in which no one ages or dies. We learn that a fairy queen named Lurline bestowed upon Oz the fairy status and left one of her fairies to be its guardian. That fairy is Ozma. This sort of flies in the face of the second book, Marvelous Land of Oz, in which it was said that Ozma was just a long lost royal who was rightly returned to her family’s throne. Regardless, I really like this new back story. It was interesting from the beginning and Baum had a few nice surprises in store. I also really liked meeting Ku-Klip, the tinsmith who created the Tin Woodman.

From what I’ve read, the Oz books had begun to decline in popularity right before this book, but it became a huge hit and started a resurgence in Oz popularity. It even carried over into some of Baum’s other non-Oz books like John Dough and the Cherub.

Below is my checklist of Oz books. I’ve crossed off the ones I’ve currently read. Next up, The Magic of Oz.